Month: November 2017

On January 15, 1850, the Indiana State legislature adopted Ovid Butler’s proposed charter for a new Christian university in Indianapolis. After five years in development, Butler University opened on November 1, 1855, as North Western Christian University at 13th Street and College Avenue on Indianapolis’ near north side at the eastern edge of the present Old Northside Historic District. Attorney and university founder Ovid Butler provided the property.

In Indianapolis, Ovid established a law firm with partners Calvin Fletcher, Simon Yandes and future Indianapolis mayor, Horatio C. Newcomb. Butler became interested and active in political and social issues. In 1849, Butler established the political and abolitionist newspaper Free Soil Banner. Due to bad health, Butler gave up his law practice in 1849, seeking retirement.

University of Wisconsin “Numen Lumen” (The divine within the universe, however manifested, is my light)

The University of Wisconsin–was founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, UW–Madison is the official state university of Wisconsin, and the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It was the first public university established in Wisconsin and remains the oldest and largest public university in the state. It became a land-grant institution in 1866

Miners who moved to the area in the 1820s and 1830s wasted little time in constructing shelters. Without shelter in the winter, they had to “live like badgers” in tunnels burrowed into hillsides, earning miners the nickname “badgers.” The tools and techniques involved in lead mining in these early years were relatively simple and inexpensive, allowing lucky miners to strike it rich with little personal expense.

Were the Irish and German immigrants welcomed in Antebellum America? (Not really and not always).

Anti-Irish sentiment may refer to or include racism, oppression, bigotry, persecution, discrimination, hatred or fear of Irish people as an ethnic group or nation, whether directed against Ireland in general or against Irish emigrants and their descendants in the Irish diaspora.

An Anti-Immigrant movement develops. What began as the secret society – “Order of the Star Spangled Banner,” evolves into a political party – The American Party (AKA the Know – Nothing Party)

Distrust – Immigration causes anxiety and social disorder – All immigrants did was drink and steal.

Discrimination – The issue of anti-Irish job discrimination in the United States. Some insist that the “No Irish need apply” signs were common.

Destruction – In Louisville, Kentucky, election-day rioters killed at least 22 people in attacks on German and Irish Catholics on Aug. 6, 1855, in what became known as “Bloody Monday.” In Philadelphia in 1844, for example, a series of nativist assaults on Catholic churches and community centers resulted in the loss of lives and the professionalization of the police force.

One of the ironies that besets any institute devoted to the study of the US Senate is that mulling today’s Senate is akin to contemplating a patient in a long-term coma. The Senate can’t function well without compromise — and in today’s political climate, compromising is often seen as selling out. In a far more polarized era, however, Clay found a way to make the Senate work.

David and Jeanne Heidler, authors of Henry Clay: The Essential American, have tried to make sense of Clay’s stance on slavery. They tell NPR’s Steve Inskeep that it wasn’t until he fell under the tutelage of George Wythe, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, that Clay began to think seriously about the issue

University of Tennessee “You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

On September 10, 1794, two years before Tennessee became a state and at a meeting of the legislature of the Southwest Territory at Knoxville, the University of Tennessee was chartered as Blount College. Tennessee has had several nicknames, but the most popular and well-known is “The Volunteer State,” a nickname earned during the War of 1812 (thousands of volunteer soldiers from Tennessee played a prominent role in this war, especially during the Battle of New Orleans).

This reputation for volunteering was reinforced during the Mexican War when the secretary of state asked for 2,800 Tennessee volunteers and got 30,000 respondents

Henry Clay Jr. (April 10, 1811 – February 23, 1847) was an American politician and soldier from Kentucky, the third son of US Senator and Congressman Henry Clay and Lucretia Hart Clay. He was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1835 and served one term. A graduate of West Point, he served in the Mexican-American War and was killed in 1847 at the Battle of Buena Vista.